NBA FINALS 1996 BULLS SONICS.

Wmvp's Demise Brings Raye's Bulls Run To End

Many Bulls fans turned down their televisions to hear the radio broadcast of Wednesday's first game of the NBA Finals. Cheryl Raye wasn't one of them.

While hoards of media from all over the world descended on the United Center for the expected climax to the Bulls' historic season, Raye found herself in an unfamiliar position. She watched a Bulls playoff game on television for the first time.

Tuesday, Raye was among the victims of the demise of WMVP-AM 1000 as an all-sports talk radio station. Raye, a 12-year veteran of covering Chicago sports teams, had been covering this Bulls team before training camp opened.

But when they tossed the ball up at midcourt Wednesday, Raye was in her suburban home in front of her television.

"I won't go down there," said Raye, who already has an out-of-town job offer to ponder. "If I don't have work to do, I feel uncomfortable. I'd feel like I was at my own wake."

Raye would have been one of more than 1,000 accredited members of the media at the United Center, according to Chris Brienza, NBA media relations director. The press corps has a distinct international flavor with 203 print and TV media people from 34 countries speaking 40 languages. That includes 16 TV commentators calling the action for overseas audiences, including Australia (the Luc Longley connection) Belgium, Germany (Detlef Schrempf tie) and Japan. The last time the Bulls were in the Finals in 1993, there were only five international commentators. By comparison, the ratio of journalists to players is 40-1.

"Every year the numbers get bigger and bigger," said Brienza, who estimated more than 600 million people saw Wednesday's game. "By the time it's all said and done, this should be an all-time high."

The death of WMVP came at a curious time. The NBA Finals are something an all-sports station dreams of. Raye had been laying the groundwork for coverage of the event since last summer. She covered training camp, often double-covering with the Bears beat, and put in the standard 14-hour days her job required.

Before the end of the regular season, she traveled with the team as it sought the historic 70th victory. Raye hadn't missed a Bulls playoff game in her career and didn't expect to miss Wednesday's game against Seattle.

"It was so surprising the way they did it, how it was done so quickly," Raye said. "It's tough. It was a big deal (NBA Finals) and I was looking forward to it. I had my plans to go to Seattle on Saturday.

"It was a corporate decision from Texas. It had nothing to do with the people up here. They all felt horrific about what they had to do."

Raye's last official coverage of the team came Tuesday night on WTTW-Ch. 11's "Chicago Tonight" program with John Callaway. Raye and fellow WMVP staffer and former Bull Norm Van Lier were on a panel discussing the Bulls. She got the call from the television station minutes after she was notified of WMVP's decision.

"Norm said, `Shall we tell them?' " she said. "I said, `No, they might not let us on the panel. Let's not tell them until after the show!' It allowed me an opportunity, one last time, to talk about the Bulls. Covering them is the best of all worlds."